Open source hardware and software company Arduino seems to impress the eager audience at this year's Rome Makers Faire. While the updates to the single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller suites are impressive, the most interesting engineering team is how these boards are used.

Arduino Makers

This section showcased Arduino's latest projects, especially the Uno Wifi system. The Uno Wifi features a brand new 8-bt microprocessor from Microchip for the first time on an Arduino board.

Similar to the Arduino Uno Rev3 with an integrated Wifi module, the Arduino Uno Wifi board is based on the ATmega328P (datasheet) with an ESP8266 Wifi Module integrated (datasheet). It features an impressive mind-blowing 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz ceramic resonator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button.

Arduino Internet of Things

This emphasis showed how Arduino could be used in unexpected ways, like the greenhouse that so captured the attention of our Interesting Engineering team. There were also a couple of demos of the MKR Vidor 4000.

More than just good tech, the IoT emphasis showed practical ways startups and companies around the world have used Arduino in creating new products and services for their respective markets.

One such way is through the Arduino Cloud, an IoT application that helps makers build connected objects fast. It lets you connect multiple devices to each other and even exchange real-time data while monitoring them from anywhere through an interface.

Best of all, Arduino Cloud is fully integrated in the Arduino Create ecosystem. This means you can quickly and easily generate a template code in Arduino Cloud and then upload it to your board using the Arduino Web Editor.